On Sunday, as I have done for thirty-two of the past thirty-five years, I attended the Remembrance Day service hosted by the Austin Branch of the Royal British Legion in Northfield, Birmingham.
Every year my thoughts turn to visits I have made to Commonwealth war graves both in the UK and in other parts of the world. All those visits have been both poignant and personally moving. None more so than when I went to one of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) cemeteries in Gaza as an MP in 2012. I made a short video of that visit which you can see here.
I met the late Ibrahim Jaradah, the CWGC head gardener who had lovingly kept Gaza’s war graves immaculate for decades and whose service had been recognised with the award of an MBE. lbrahim’s family continued his work after his retirement. His grandson, Ibrahim Jnr, was born in the CWGC staff house at Tuffah cemetery near Gaza City. Ibrahim Jnr himself became head gardener at Gaza’s Commonwealth War Graves. He carried out his duties with the same diligence as his grandfather and father has done before him. That was until October last year when Ibrahim Jnr, his family and his colleagues became some of the estimated 1.9m Palestinians who have been forced from their homes by Israel’s assault on Gaza over the past year.
I don’t know how far the cemetery itself has survived the mass destruction of Gaza since October 2023. Israel bans international media from Gaza so it is difficult to get independently verified information. However, there are local reports that the house in which Ibrahim Jnr was born has been destroyed and that at least some of the war graves themselves – particularly those of Ottoman, Indian and ANZAC soldiers – have been seriously damaged and/or desecrated.
Mercifully, representations by the CWGC helped Ibrahim Jnr, his immediate family and most of the CWGC staff to make it across Gaza’s southern border into Egypt early this year. One CWGC staff member chose to remain. I don’t know where in Gaza he is now or how many retired CWGC workers or extended family members of current staff have so far survived the bombing and starvation that are still being inflicted on the people in Gaza.
On Remembrance Day, we rightly pay our respects to those who gave their lives for the country in war. As a society we also have a duty to remember and support our fellow citizens who have survived service in war zones and who continue to live with the trauma of what they have experienced.
And neither should we forget those in other parts of the world who are today still suffering horrors beyond the comprehension of most of us. They include the loved ones of those who have for decades cared for the final resting places of Britain’s own war dead in Gaza.
Remembrance is about honouring the sacrifices of past. It is also about facing up to the reality of what is going on in the present. When we say “never again”, we have to mean it.
